Linguistics

Runology is concerned with some 1300 years of the history of writing. Runes constituted the script used by many Germanic peoples from the second century A.D. Their use died out in Norway around 1400. This course spans the entire history of runes and gives an overview of both the secondary literature and the inscriptions themselves. For a relevant point of comparison, the course also includes a concise introduction to contemporary Roman Alphabet epigraphy in Scandinavia.

This course explores how Taiwan developed into a multilingual society from ancient times to the present, delving into: (a) How Taiwan's multilingual society was formed, and how language and phenomena appeared in Taiwanese society during each period; and (b) how the various language groups interact, and what kind of relationship between language and power is presented. The course also addresses interesting phenomena involving language and society, history, culture, and politics.

This is an introductory course in linguistic typology. It analyzes syntactic constructions and langauge.

This course provides a study of the sociolinguistics of the Spanish language. Topics include: sociolinguistics and dialectology; sociolinguistic variation applied to Spanish language study; analysis of phenomena derived from the contact of Spanish with other languages; Spanish in contact with other peninsular languages.

The course offers a general introduction to the history, literature, and cultures of China. Emphasis is placed on the modern period from the nineteenth century onwards. Students develop basic knowledge on modern Chinese history, from the last empire to the republic to the current age of the socialist market economy. The course pays special attention to literature as a key expression of culture but also addresses Chinese linguistics as well as other cultural expressions such as film and philosophy. Throughout the course, theoretical and methodological questions are addressed concerning the study of China in a postcolonial and globalizing world.

The course explores the relationship between language and culture from an evolutionary and current perspective. It discusses the concept of linguistics as a social science and analyzes the phenomenon of linguistic contact in Chile including the various languages and dialects in contact: indigenous languages, Spanish and its socio-dialectal varieties, English, etc.